Press Room

BATAVIA, Ill. - The Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will host the next Virtual Ask-a-Scientist on November 18, 2003 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Central Time. Physicists Harald Fox and Greg Davis of Fermilab's DZero experiment will respond to questions live online.

Virtual Ask-a-Scientist is an online chat session with Fermilab scientists that gives participants the opportunity to ask questions about high-energy physics from: "How does an accelerator work?" to "Why is the universe expanding?" Fermilab invites people of all ages and all science backgrounds to participate. Previous chat sessions have involved participants from as far away as Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.

"Sharing the excitement of what we do at Fermilab is not only fun but also of great
importance," said Mike Clements, a DZero physicist and previous Ask-a-Scientist participant. "Virtual Ask-a-Scientist allows us to both educate and to communicate with the public what high-energy physics is all about and why we believe it is worth doing. I was extremely encouraged to find that there are so many people who are interested in science and want to learn more about it by participating in Virtual Ask-a-Scientist."

Interested participants may join the Virtual Ask-a-Scientist chatroom on the evening of November 18, 2003 by clicking on a link on the Fermilab homepage (http://www.fnal.gov) and following the directions to log in and ask questions. Java enabled browsers are required. Internet Explorer version 4 or higher is recommended, but Netscape's browsers may also be used. (Netscape is not recommended for Macintosh users.)